Posts Tagged ‘Dublin Chamber of Commerce’

After a very surprising and unexpected conversation with a fellow member of Dublin Chamber of Commerce, I asked her to write a guest blog post for me. This is the first time I have done this on my blog.

The very lovely, intelligent and highly qualified, Jensine-Bethna Wall has recently started her own business, Hyphenate, and is facing the prospect of being homeless.

Dublin, we have a serious problem..

Ireland, we have a serious problem..

Blog post by Jensine:

The New Year has just begun and already fear has nestled itself tightly into the pit of my stomach.

After eight years of calling the house I rent my home in a few months time I have to move out, and find a new place to stay. So unlike so many who look towards 2018 full of hope and optimism my mind is clogged with trying to figure out what to do once the 1st of May has arrived, and I no longer have a roof over my head.

Moving has always been a traumatic event in anyone’s life but now for many, who live and work in Dublin (and the rest of Ireland), moving has become a fiscally impossible task. Irish rents are rising at six times the European median (The Irish Times 8th January 2018) which means that salaries don’t go far in this new Irish rental market.

Ironically the rental market is also the reason why I have to move.

My landlord claims it has to do with me being late with my rent a few time over the years but I know, from what he has said and from how he kept bringing ‘market value’ up, that he wants me out so he can hike up the price.

Since I’ve been living in the property since 2010 he can only increase the rent little by little so now he wants me out. He doesn’t care that I have been a vital part in creating a community in the street, or that I have increased the value of his property by helping to get rid of drug dealers in the neighbourhood, nor is he interested in the fact that after eight years of me living in the cottage all it needs is a lick of paint and someone could move right back in – no major refurbishment required!

So during these sleepless nights trying to figure out what I can afford and where I could go I can’t help but feel forgotten by the government and those who don’t seem to recognise how problematic the rental market is in Ireland. And sadly, as a single, female who lives on her own I am also not a high priority for the media.

And while of course I understand the need to house children, I can’t help but feel that a roof over my head and a place to feel safe and secure in, is just as important for me. But with the lack of housing and the need for single occupancy living quarters, single people are at the bottom of everyone’s priority list.

My recent visit to the Dublin City Council Housing Services proves just how low a priority I am, as I was told that I would have to wait 12 years before ‘affordable rented housing for people on low income’ would become available for me, even though all the forms I had to fill in and were stamped, deemed me eligible.

After I burst out laughing, the horror of the situation demanded tears or laughter, I was told that I may be eligible for HAP (Housing Assistance Payment). But this brief moment of hope was shattered with the added statement “if you can find a landlord who will accept it’”

Not understanding why landlords wouldn’t accept a regular payment from the State and that it is actually illegal not to, I asked around and found three reasons why:

1) The rent is paid in arrears, so the landlord won’t receive payment until the end of the month, which for many doesn’t coincide with their mortgage payments and why wait when so many pay up front?

2) The landlord will have to register their property and many don’t as they avoid taxes by not doing so

3) There is some paperwork involved and landlords won’t want to do that if there is no need when queues form for every viewing

Scouring the Internet for any suitable housing is eating up hours of my days, adding to my stress and increasing the crippling fear that has taken up residency in my stomach.

I set up my own business in October 2017 and work from home, office space is too expensive, but this means that sharing accommodation isn’t desirable.

And since I am in my forties and have lived on my own most of my adult life forcing me to cohabit due to financial strain will not benefit my mental health.

Recently the NHS completed a study on the effects that housing has on peoples health and found that “good quality, affordable, safe housing underpins our mental and physical well-being”, so when there is no affordable housing, let alone safe and quality ones, people suffer more from depression and anxiety.

As the year grows older by the day I can’t help but wonder how I, an educated, socially conscious and community oriented single woman, have ended up facing homelessness in 2018.

At the beginning of this year I was voted onto the Dublin Chamber of Commerce Council – it’s like a big management team for the organisation, which plays a role in setting the direction for it and overseeing how it is run.

The Council is made up of 30 elected members and each year 10 must resign to be replaced by another 10, which can include the members who have resigned.

To get voted onto the Council you must put yourself forward for election and gather enough votes from members to make the grade.

It’s a tough and humbling thing putting yourself in the firing line, out there to be judged but that’s what you do to become a member!

If you don’t put in the work you won’t be elected and this means punching in sufficient effort so that members will recognise you and put their faith in you.

To rise to the pinnacle of the organisation and become President is another ballgame altogether and is testament to the very clever and robust set of rules that have been put in place to ultimately protect the Chamber.

Presidential Process

If you wish to become President you must first become Deputy Vice President (Number 3) and to achieve this you must first be a Council member and you must be voted in by the other members.

The very clever organisation rules only allow council members who are on their 3rd year to be eligible – quite simply you must be around council for over two years ensuring that you serve your time learning the ropes.

The Deputy Vice President normally becomes Vice President the next year and then President.

By the time this person takes on the role they will have at least 5 years under their belt and they will be fully immersed in the workings of the Chamber – this is a superb system for protecting the running of the organisation that plays such a significant role in the business of our capital city.

Now compare this to the role of President of the United States, possibly the most powerful and influential position in the world!!

Up steps Donald Trump. a loudmouth. brash, uncouth, moneybags who has enough balls and bravado to run and convince a lot of people that he is actually a valid candidate.

Would Donald be prepared to first punch in three years of meetings and learning the ropes with his peers before being able to run?

Would he put himself forward to be judged by his peers who have witnessed him in action close up for at least 2 years?

Would he then hang around for another two years of valuable learning, soaking up the ways of the organisation and the skills required to identify and tackle the real issues?

We had an interesting session last Friday morning with the Business Owners Network at Dublin Chamber of Commerce. We hold these networking sessions every second Friday between 7:30 and 9am (no messing with this gang!).

I was chairing the session and we decided to do some online networking – we asked everyone to tweet their “Number one Business Tip” and use the hashtag #BONTips. A quick search of the hashtag showed everyone who else was in the room and we took it from there, connecting, replying – plenty of interaction and new connections.

Besides having great fun as always the session yielded some very interesting business tips:

@JodhianMorian Privacy247

“Privacy is a choice but never let anybody dictate your default settings”

“There is NO substitute to hard work. So you might as well get stuck in and enjoy it!”

@CHBCGroup CHBC Office Group

“Just get started”

@HapiColm Colm Rowan

“Clear and honest communication is essential to ensuring a team is successful in business. Communication drops, so does teamwork”

@briancrowleytip Brian Crowley

“Passion is everything!”

@PrintDepotIre Print Depot

“Turn up and get involved”

@Abrivia12 Donal O’Brien

“Hire ok people, have an ok company! Hire great people”

@Kildaredesign Grainne Slattery

“SEO it’s all about being found”

@eoscott Eoin Scott

“Always back up the data on your PC. Accidents happen!”

@conorisme Conor Coyne

“Succeed or learn”

@joebehan7 Joe Behan

“Listen to understand”

@kdhampsonkevin Kevin Hampson

“Hire a great accountant”

@robertwrockwell Robert Whelan

“Embrace setbacks. Don’t dwell! Learn and move on”

@Alec_Drew Alec Drew

“Value of the zero invoice”

@Davey_ETE Dave Murray

“People want to do business with people they like”

@ItsSocialBee Melissa Curley

“Use http://canva.com to create a twitter background header. It’s free to use and uses exact dimensions”

and of course last but not least is my one….

@GregCantyFuzion

My number one business tip is “Never waste a good story”

What is your No.1 Business Tip?

If you are a business owner in the Dublin area contact the Dublin Chamber of Commerce and arrange to attend one of the Business Owner Network sessions for free. Even better ‘tweet’ them @DubCham – tell them Greg sent you!!

I was asked to give the new Dublin Chamber of Commerce member, Ian Hannon of Activate Sales Training, two minutes at the beginning of the Business Owners Network session (we hold these every second Friday at 7:30am) to introduce himself to the group and briefly promote a training programme that he was running shortly.

I was determined that I would give him about a maximum of 2 minutes as I had a busy “Let’s do Business” session planned.

I was chatting with him during the pre-meeting networking over coffee and croissants and I let him know that I would introduce him at the very beginning of the session. During the course of our chat he explained that he had been up really early because on Fridays he volunteers for Dublin Simon Community and he does a ‘breakfast run‘ before his days work.

Basically he delivers breakfast packs to some of the homeless on the streets of Dublin.

Ian became a different person to me.

At the start of the session when I was introducing Ian I asked him to first tell the group what he did earlier that morning. The group hung on his every word as he spoke about the different characters, the guys he sees regularly, the guys who are still asleep, the guys who are on the streets for just a few days.

Ian became a different person to everyone in the room.

When he got around to speaking about his training programme everyone listened attentively – we liked him, respected him and trusted him. He spoke for a lot more than 2 minutes – Ian will do well!

I had a really great, inspirational day at the Dublin Chamber, Momentum Summit, which was held at the Aviva Stadium last Friday.

This was the second year of this full day event, which featured a really nice mix of speakers, master classes and good, old fashioned networking during the many coffee breaks, lunch and drinks reception.

We had top class panelists from a variety of businesses big and small around topics such as “Differentiation“, “Scaling” and “Online Opportunities“, we had a fantastic speaker Jamil Qureshi who spoke about the importance of your Mindset and your Purpose and lastly we had a “Competitive Edge” sporting panel, which included Paul O’Connell (who incorrectly predicted an Ulster win!), Henry Shefflin and Jack McCaffrey.

This easy and relaxed Friday was superb and as Dublin Chamber of Commerce President, Derry Gray eloquently suggested at the beginning of the day, it was “time for you to think and quietly reflect“, which I certainly did.

The two young entrepreneurs, Elaine Lavery and Hannah O’Reilly who co-founded Improper Butter spoke really well about their exciting start-up journey and I think they gave me and many others cause for reflection!

Privately while I listened to the story of these two young entrepreneurs I wondered about my life, my career and the things that I have achieved along the way. I have worked in fabulous companies, I opened, closed and sold many different businesses and now I am dedicating most of my energy to Fuzion, which I love.

That voice in my head started: “Should I have done more with my career, have I achieved what I wanted to, have I been a success, do I have the same energy that I had when I was the same age as these young entrepreneurs and I am ready for new exciting opportunities when they come along?”

Has it passed me and my generation by, I wondered and is it now up to a new generation to do these new things?

These thoughts were bothering me a little as I ate my lunch and the guy alongside me said loudly what I had been thinking. Some of the others I chatted to during the rest of the day were also saying the same.

While we were so clearly impressed by these young entrepreneurs we were at the same time feeling that our time had come and gone.

I hopped in the car and faced rush hour traffic (Luas strikers adding an extra layer of volume – thank you strikers and SIPTU!) as well as a trip to Cork to get to a long awaited comeback gig by Cork band, Rubyhorse.

Those thoughts about the “Momentum” of youth lingered with me on this longer than usual journey.

Eventually I got home, fed the dog and headed to the White Horse. Brendan my son and his buddy Alan were at the gig as well as Alan’s dad Harry – I was chatting with Harry as we watched our two boys, who are now in their late twenties. Both are part of this younger, carefree generation, both with exciting careers. Brendan is flying as a music and advert director and Alan is a writer who is just back after participating in a documentary project in Columbia of all places!

The boys are about to start work on a short film together based on the storyline from the music video that Brendan did for Gavin James “For You”.

We were chatting about this generation and how different they were to ours – at least that is what we feel. How many fathers and mothers have had this conversation about their children?

Harry told me about a young lad, who was a neighbour of his when he was growing up. This lad packed up school really early. As early as the age of 12 he used head to Croke Park from Cork on the train for big matches selling merchandise. At 17 he bought his first pub.

Harry met him recently and he is now working for someone else, happily punching out a weeks wage – we try things and some of these things fail. If enough things fail we retrench, we lose that will to try again and maybe that entrepreneurial spirit gets knocked out of us.

That question was back in my head – Do we lose that ‘Momentum’ as we get older?

The gig kicked off..

This gig is a really significant part of this blog post as there is a very special story behind it so bear with me just a little bit longer!

These guys came from my school in Cork – they formed a band and dreamed big!

The superb lead singer, Dave Farrell (he was born to be a lead singer!) was once sent home from school for declaring he wanted to be a rock star! It was like that at that time – get a solid job was what we were all encouraged to do.

Dave and his band of merry men followed their dreams and their success came in the United States where a few years of hard work and great songs resulted in them hitting the Top 20 with appearances on the top TV shows such as The Letterman and the Conal O’Brien show.

In an interview with the Irish Emigrant in 2003 Dave spoke about the differences between Ireland and the U.S., which he summed up in one comment “Here, you have loads of freedom and opportunities. America grants you the opportunity to pursue a dream“. Things have changed in Ireland..

Unfortunately through a combination of burnout, geography and young families these special, very talented school friends called it a day on Rubyhorse and settled in to ‘ordinary’ lives in different parts of the world.

Through a quirk of circumstances (a charity reunion last year) these older and wiser guys are now back with a vengeance and a very privileged audience were treated to a proper Rubyhorse gig full of old classics and some sparking new material from a new album that will come later this year. (Well done Dave, Joe and Deccie and a few new faces!)

After a superb gig and a few beers I walked home and thought – We are older, we have experienced the highs and lows that life throws us but we still have it and we are going to “Sparkle” just like this new generation.

Before we do anything we have to focus on the housing opportunity. Nothing else will work properly without attending to this key issue first.

I attended a really interesting session hosted by the Dublin Chamber of Commerce to discuss the Draft Dublin City Development Plan. There was a big attendance by the top property companies in Dublin as well as other key stakeholders.

There was a presentation by John O’Hara, Acting City Planner of the Dublin City Council. He carefully outlined the areas around Dublin that have been specifically earmarked for development.

The big message from his presentation is that there is a huge demand for residential accommodation and the challenge for the city is to deliver this with the limited space that is available as quick as possible.

There is also big demand for quality office space – however without places for people to live extra offices will only cause problems.

John Moran, Managing Director of Jones Lane LaSalle (JLL) presented their medium term outlook on the property market in Dublin.

The highlights of this presentation were big demand for office and residential property matched with insufficient supply and a rising hotel market with 85% occupancy, one of the highest in Europe. Being practical about it (and it will be very unpopular to say) maybe its a good thing that the Web Summit will be in Portugal next year? – we won’t have the hotel capacity otherwise!

Quite tellingly we heard about two FDI projects that Dublin lost to overseas locations due to lack of sufficient office space. While this was a loss (the people in the audience were concerned when we heard this) would we have been able to provide accommodation to the workers needed in these companies ?

He also spoke about rising rents putting pressure on employees. This is simple – the employee looks for a raise because their rent has been increased by €200 per month – their problem becomes the employers problem and this wage increase (its takes a lot more than €200 to put an extra €200 in a persons pay packet) will be passed onto the customer and before you know it we are uncompetitive all over again.

How did we get back to this place so quickly?

Brendan Foster of Grant Thornton took us through a very interesting case study for a proposed National Concert Hall Quarter, which would deliver considerable much needed city centre office and residential space.

A few things struck me about the session:

Are we not talking?

I was really surprised at the discussion in the room – it struck me that these vested interests had to be brought together by the Chamber for these important conversations to take place. Surely these vital conversations should be happening for more than just 60 minutes? This is very worrying – joined up thinking is required to tackle such a huge issue and a Draft Development Plan for our capital should have much bigger input.

Business first

We all tend to think first about business, attracting more of it, making sure that quality office space is available – both for the big multinationals and the smaller indigenous start ups and service providers.

I could feel the frustration in the room when John O’Hara spent so much time talking about accommodation – we wanted to talk about business, BUT…

Housing is the most important issue that we have to get right very quickly – without this nothing else will happen!

It is clear that Dublin is seriously ‘overcooked‘ and there are serious issues with the supply of social housing, private and accommodation for rental.

If we don’t first sort out the housing challenge quickly in Dublin we should forget about attracting foreign direct investment and encouraging indigenous growth (I hate making that statement) in the city as it will cause further overheating, which we are not able to handle.

Huge Opportunity

The housing challenge in its own right is a huge economic opportunity, which we need to do everything to grasp and facilitate as a huge priority, right now if we want to progress.

This group of business owners meet pretty much every second Friday morning, bright and early from 7:30 am till 9am. The sessions always involve some informal networking over a coffee and normally there is a guest speaker about some topic of interest.

(I would highly recommend it to business owners in Dublin – great for networking, learning, contacts and new business)

At our recent session, which I was privileged to chair we did some formal networking by breaking the room into circles of six people allowing each person a proper chance to share with the others what they do. At the session we also looked for people to share their number one business tip, which was quite interesting and varied.

At the end of the session each group were asked to share their learnings, which again generated some really interesting topics;

Nothing beats meeting people face to face

Listen to your customer and be open to changing your offer according to what they need

By listening to others you always learn something new

Cold calling can be quite enjoyable!

Don’t be afraid to ask for the business

My big learning from the session was that you should never under estimate the wisdom that experience brings – in every conversation with someone you nearly always learn something new.

I was chatting to one of the attendees, Sean who was passionate about customer service. The gist of the conversation was that customer service has disimproved generally and that there is huge customer frustration in particular with the call centre culture whereby you rarely get the feeling that someone is really ‘on top‘ of your problem.

You know the drill ..you call, you are often in a queue to be heard, you go through a sequence of pressing numbers, then you give your account details and eventually you get a chance to describe what is wrong. From here you can end up being passed from pillar to post, each time repeating your details and the nature of the problem.

In fact when you have an issue you need to put a good half hour aside as the whole process can end up taking that long.

He used a great expression to demonstrate what a great process would look like. You just want the person you speak to first to say: “Don’t worry, I own your problem now” and leave you with an assurance that they will see it through until it is sorted.

Over 1,600 of us sat down for a fine meal at the Dublin Chamber annual dinner in the Convention Centre and listened to guest speakers Alex Ferguson and our Taoiseach Enda Kenny. It was a great night with lots of friendly business banter just like the banter shared by members since 1783!

In 1783 a group of men (no women at that stage!) came together and founded the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, the first in the country.

Dublin Chamber of Commerce is in fact one of the oldest such organisation in Europe, having been preceded by other collective bodies including the Guild of Merchants, which dated from the mediaeval period, and the Ouzel Galley Society, established at the beginning of the 18th century.

Dublin Chamber’s formation followed a weakening of the merchant guild system which left an opening for bodies which advocated free trade. Much of the focus of the Chamber in its early years was on abolishing impositions and opposing restrictions on export trade.

The creation of Dublin Chamber led to the formation of other chambers of commerce around Ireland, including Waterford (1787), Londonderry (1790), Limerick (1807) and Cork (1814).

Who were the men that founded the Chamber and what were the business issues that motivated them to come together?

Travers Hartley was the first Chamber President and held this position from 1783 until 1788.

On 18 March 1783, 60 year old Travers Hartley chaired the first meeting of the Chamber, shortly after his election. He had been a leading light in the Committee of Merchants since the 1760’s. Being a Presbyterian and dissenter, Travers was very aware of the sectarian nature of business in Dublin at the time.

Travers married Anne Spence on 11 February, 1749, who was described in the newspapers as ‘an agreeable young lady with a £3,000 fortune‘. She died soon after the marriage, and he was married for a second time on 28 March 1752 to Anne Gibton by whom he had one surviving son, James (d.1810), who never married, and five daughters.

His youngest daughter Anne married Addison Hone, the youngest brother of Alderman Nathaniel Hone, a future President of Dublin Chamber – keep it in the family!

For some reason there seems to be a gap of eight years between Travers Hartley and the next President John Duncan in 1805 and in the next 2 years there were six different Presidents, whatever was going on.

George Francis Carleton, a director of ‘The Commercial Insurance Company’ was President in 1807 . He was also one of the Common Councilmen of the Guild of Merchants in Dublin from 1824 till 1830, as was George Simpson Carleton who was the nephew of George Francis Carleton, all living on Eustace Street in Dublin. Keeping it in the family once again!

72 year old Joshua Pim (1748-1822), a Dublin Quaker, whose family came from Westmeath, became President in 1820. He became a general merchant in Dublin with a business premises at 16 Usher’s Island, and resided in the adjoining house, 15 Usher’s Island, later famous as the setting for James Joyce’s short story ‘The Dead‘.

His career before this appointment makes interesting reading as we see the other organisations of significance in Dublin at the time.

He was elected a member of the RDS Dublin Society on 31 January 1782 and, appointed to the Society’s museum sub-committee 21 August 1800, and to the committee of trade on 23 February 1809.

He was elected a member of the Ouzel Galley Society in 1776 and was a founder member of Dublin Chamber of Commerce in 1783. He largely controlled the bay wool business in the Dublin area and was a proprietor of the Commercial Insurance Company, established in 1799 with a capital of £100,000 to transact fire, marine, and life insurance. That was a colossal amount of money at the time.

In 1816 he acquired the Greenmount Mill in Harold’s Cross to process raw cotton imported from New York.

The early Presidents were prominent businessmen who all seemed to be living in Dublin city centre.

1914

One hundred years ago business in Ireland had war issues to deal with and Chamber President Richard K. Gamble with an address of 51 Fitzwilliam Square (just up the road from our office!) was going to be busy.

When the Dublin Chamber of Commerce met in September 1914, the President, Richard K. Gamble, impressed upon those gathered the need for employers to encourage and facilitate the enlistment of their workforce.

It was stressed that employers should keep workers’ jobs open on their return from war and explain to them that the uncertainty of trade during the conflict meant that they could not be assured that they could retain their jobs if they stayed.

Richard K. Gamble paid the ultimate price when one year later his 22 year son Richard with a rank of Second Lieutenant with the Kings Liverpool Regiment, 7th Battalion was killed in battle in France.

Since its foundation in 1783, Dublin Chamber of Commerce has sought to bring business people together to share ideas, to form a single voice for the local business community and to ultimately connect and grow business.

While business has changed a lot since the days of Travers Hartley and Richard K. Gamble many things are the very same. While we are not exactly the wealthy business owners and merchants of industry like our founders and those who followed in their footsteps we still turn up with the objective of doing business and making a crust!

Well done to Dublin Chamber of Commerce and all the other Chambers for giving us places to meet, to debate, to discuss and to do business with a collective voice and of course to eat drink and be merry!